Domino, which was introduced in 2017, is a cloud-based platform that delivers a single place to self-manage tools and infrastructure. It’s built for scale to support teams and projects and helps organizations build and deliver solutions without technical hurdles. Domino can be run on-premises or in a hybrid multi-cloud environment and offers fully-managed cloud services as well.
Lily Hevesh, who created the domino art above, began playing with the tiles as a child. Her grandparents had a classic 28-piece set, and she enjoyed lining them up in straight or curved lines before flicking the first one to watch them all fall. What she doesn’t know is that each domino contains potential energy. That’s because, unlike most objects, a domino has flat sides that touch each other rather than round edges like those of a ball or a card. Its surface is marked with an arrangement of dots, called pips, that originally represented the results of throwing two dice.
But even without a dice, each domino has inertia. This tendency to resist motion is a result of the domino’s flat surfaces and its mass. It takes a very large force to move it. But once the first domino is pushed over, its potential energy transforms into kinetic energy—the energy of motion. Some of that energy is transferred to the next domino, providing the push that causes it to fall. And so on.
For Domino’s, this type of energy has been a boon for the pizza chain’s expansion in recent years. When Doyle became CEO in 2010, Domino’s was struggling, with underperforming stores and a stock price stuck at an unimpressive $8 per share. Since then, the company has grown into the second-largest pizza chain in the world, with more than 12,500 locations worldwide.
A key to that growth has been a shift in the company’s mindset. Instead of viewing growth as an optional route that should be pursued only if it was necessary, Doyle has focused on making Domino’s indispensable. He has done this by investing in the chain’s technology (such as its app, enabling customers to order pizza using their phones), hiring people who can bring innovative ideas to the table, and expanding into new markets such as Australia.
To achieve this, Domino’s has relied on its “Domino Effect,” a concept developed by its vice president of marketing. The idea is that the chain’s customers are willing to pay for a faster delivery time than competitors are willing to offer. As a result, Domino’s can charge more money for its pizzas and still make a profit. This strategy isn’t foolproof, and it has led to some missteps. For example, a 1986 promise to have pizza delivered within 30 minutes drove many Domino’s drivers to speed through traffic and to break laws, leading to several accidents that killed innocent bystanders. Nevertheless, it appears to be working for now. In 2019, Domino’s reported record-breaking profits and plans to have 25,000 global locations by 2025.